The most charitable way I can put my point of view is that, even if it is the other person’s fault, I think that you should prioritize figuring out how to cut your rate of being involved in escalation spirals in half.
If we’re referring to my participation in Less Wrong specifically (and I must assume that you are), then I have to point out that it would be very easy for me to cut my rate of being involved in what you call “escalation spirals” (regardless of whether I agree with your characterization of the situations in question) not only in half or even tenfold, but to zero. To do this, I would simply stop posting and commenting here.
The question then becomes whether there’s any unilateral action I can take, any unilateral change I can make, whose result would be that I could continue spending time on participation in Less Wrong discussions in such a way that there’s any point or utility in my doing so, while also to any non-trivial degree reducing the incidence of people being insulted (or “insulted”), escalating, etc.
It seems to me that there is not.
Certainly there are actions that other people (such as, say, the moderators of the site) could take, that would have that sort of outcome! Likewise, there are all sorts of trends, cultural shifts, organic changes in norms, etc., which would have a similarly fortuitous result.
But is there anything that I could do, alone, to “solve” this “problem”, other than just not posting or commenting here? I certainly can’t imagine anything like that.
(EDIT: And this is, of course, to say nothing of the question of whether it even should be “my problem to solve”! I think you can guess where I stand on that issue…)
Our previous exchanges have convinced me that in important ways, you reject the idea that you ought to care about how your words and actions affect other people as long as they’re within the bounds of the law.
I do not think that this is an accurate characterization of any views that I hold.
If we’re referring to my participation in Less Wrong specifically (and I must assume that you are), then I have to point out that it would be very easy for me to cut my rate of being involved in what you call “escalation spirals” (regardless of whether I agree with your characterization of the situations in question) not only in half or even tenfold, but to zero. To do this, I would simply stop posting and commenting here.
The question then becomes whether there’s any unilateral action I can take, any unilateral change I can make, whose result would be that I could continue spending time on participation in Less Wrong discussions in such a way that there’s any point or utility in my doing so, while also to any non-trivial degree reducing the incidence of people being insulted (or “insulted”), escalating, etc.
It seems to me that there is not.
Certainly there are actions that other people (such as, say, the moderators of the site) could take, that would have that sort of outcome! Likewise, there are all sorts of trends, cultural shifts, organic changes in norms, etc., which would have a similarly fortuitous result.
But is there anything that I could do, alone, to “solve” this “problem”, other than just not posting or commenting here? I certainly can’t imagine anything like that.
(EDIT: And this is, of course, to say nothing of the question of whether it even should be “my problem to solve”! I think you can guess where I stand on that issue…)
I do not think that this is an accurate characterization of any views that I hold.